LOST: The Compass Time Travel Paradox - BuddyTV

The season 5 premiere of Lost brilliantly introduced time travel as a major component of the storytelling. The people left behind on the Island are randomly jumping through time. There’s a mystery about whether the points in time they jump to is random or pre-ordained, but other rules have been established.

Dr. Marvin Candle and Daniel Faraday both explained that people can’t change the past, and that any attempts to do so will fail. However, Faraday also revealed that, for unknown reasons, Desmond is special and immune from this rule.

My bigger question is trying to understand what jumps. Obviously the survivors and their clothes jump, but people like Richard Alpert don’t. The Zodiac made the jump, but Juliet and Sawyer assumed this was because it was being used at the time. Now, however, we’ve seen several time jumps and the Zodiac, even when it’s not in use, still jumps with them.

However, this does not seem to be the case for everything. In one scene, Richard Alpert gave John Locke a compass, telling him that the next time they meet, he should return it. Locke time jumps, and he still has the compass, meaning it could jump with him. Similarly, the bullet in John’s leg jumped as well.

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